Failing the market

Before I begin, I should acknowledge that I have been criticized for having an insensitive title to this post. It's certainly true that lots of good candidates do not find a job they are happy with on the job market, so in that sense "fail" is a harsh term. But overall, I think candidates will benefit from this blog a lot more if it is blunt and does not sugarcoat things. One of the advantages of doing it anonymously is that I can afford to do it that way. 

The job market is tough, and almost everyone has some pretty crushing moments. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds, and history tends to be written by the victors. Most of the job market advice you will get will come from faculty members, which means that they had at least some success on the job market. Personally, I struggled a little bit and had some close friends who struggled a lot. I will try to pass on some wisdom from non-winners.

The first piece of advice is to stay on top of things. If things start going badly, there are things you can do to react, but you need to do them in a timely way. Be aware of the standard timing of the job market. The bulk of interview requests come at the end of November and the first week of December. If that window has started to close and you have very few interview requests, you are in trouble. Similarly, the bulk of flyout requests come within the first couple weeks of AEAs. If mid-January starts to roll around and you have very few or no flyouts, you are in trouble. 

If you are interviewed by an employer, it is completely acceptable to ask about the timeline for the next stage, although you might not get a precise answer. At the flyout stage, you should definitely talk about timelines, and you can also follow-up afterwards to check in (just don't do it too often). I recommend doing this and noting everything down carefully, so that you have personalized information about how your market is going.

 Econjobrumors contains a wiki where users can publicly log when they have interview invitations, flyout invitations, or job offers. It may be a useful tool, but it isn't official information. Some people may post false information, even if it is just accidentally logging an invitation to interview for a school's macro position under the school's micro position. Also, sometimes employers don't send out all invitations at once, particularly if they are hiring multiple positions. The wiki logs when one call was made, not when calls are stopped. For what its worth, I followed it pretty closely when I was on the market comparing what I knew with what was posted. I found it fairly accurate at the interview stage, less so at later stages (although as I explained above, at later stages it is easier to have personalized information). Some schools started posting this type of info on twitter using the hashtag #ejminfo. If this becomes very widespread, it should be a real improvement, as this information is more reliable and contains information about when invitations are finished.

If your market is going slowly you can start reacting to it. The first thing to do is to talk to your committee. Don't hesitate to be in regular touch with them. Doing badly on the market may be depressing or feel embarrassing, so the last thing you might feel like you want to do is talk about it with people you have spent years trying to impress. But your committee can only help you if you let them, so suck it up and talk to them. The main thing they can do is pass on the message personally that you are very available on the market. If an employer is concerned about whether they will be able to hire you they may not want to waste time on you in a fast moving market. So if they hear in a personalized message from your committee that they are likely to be able to they make look more closely. Even if they overlooked you because they didn't think you were good enough or weren't the best fit, a personal message may get them to take a second look. If a school interviewed you but did not invite you for a flyout, they may be glad to know that if they don't match with any of their first choices, you are still available to be picked up late in the game.

The second thing you want to do is monitor all job listings sites closely for late listings that don't operate on the standard AEA dealines. Some schools join the market late because of administrative delays or last minute gaps they need to fill. These jobs are listed from mid-December right through the late spring, when schools who tried and failed to hire in the regular time frame will join in. There is a spike in these during the "job market scramble" in March, when skunked candidates can sign up and list themselves for employers to search through. Late listings are a little different than regular listings. The average rank of departments that hire late is far lower. They are also more likely to be in a department outside of economics, and thus might involve a different process. If you apply to late listings because you are a lot more available than you hope, it may be a good idea to ask faculty in your department to pass along your interest and availability to any schools they might know people at.

The third thing you want to do if your market goes south is think about contingency plans. There are 4 broad classes of alternatives. Postdocs, another year of grad school, visiting positions, and leaving academia. I will talk about these one by one.

Postdocs.
 In general, this is the best alternative from the perspective of maximizing your potential academic career, but they are also the hardest to get. In essence, postdocs are an extension of grad school, usually at a different institution. They involve a very light or zero teaching load. They pay somewhere between a PhD stipend and a faculty salary. They can be anywhere between 1 and 3 years. They usually involve some faculty mentorship which is not unlike the relationship with a PhD advisor. They sometimes involve supporting a faculty member on a particular research project or agenda, or they can be open ended. Some of the best postdoc positions hire in the normal hiring market, but a lot of "second-tier" postdocs hire in the late market. A lot of these late positions hire more informally, and are arrangements between faculty at different institutions. If this is a path you are interested in, speak to your advisors and ask them to keep their ears to the ground and prod their friends at other institutions to see if anything is available.

If you are considering a postdoc, keep in mind that you will be on the market again in a couple years. If you are doing the postdoc because you didn't get a tenure track job the first time round, ask yourself why you expect more next time around. A postdoc is a better option if you can figure out why you didn't put your best foot forward and can come up with a concrete plan to address it. If you take a two or three year postdoc, keep in mind that in order to improve your standing you not only need to make progress, you need to make more progress than someone would expect you to make in two or three years given where you are now. That is the only way to raise your stock, which you need to do.

Additional grad school.
If you are able to get funding for an additional year of grad school (or are willing to pay for it), you can take another swing at the market if you fail the first time. If your market is going poorly, speak to your grad chair to find out if may be possible. The advice about needing to improve yourself applies just as much or more to another year of grad school as it does to a postdoc. A school that considered you and decided you couldn't quite pass muster one year may discard you quickly the next. Even if it is a place you didn't apply or has forgotten your application, you still have to ask yourself why you will generate lots of interest next time around given that the market passed on you earlier.  If you decide to do another year of grad school you only have a few months until the next market. In that few months you probably want to come up with a new job market paper. At the very least make very substantial additions to the current one and produce some other work. If you can't figure out how you will be substantially better the next time around, an extra year of grad school is a risky gamble. 

Visiting position. 
Many schools hire young economists for 1-3 years to fill teaching gaps. These positions are not without value, but they have real disadvantages. You do get a decent paycheck and teaching experience. However, they involve moving to a new place, preparing and teaching a pretty heavy teaching load, and then having to get enough research together to go on the market again. Based on my observation, some who take visiting positions kick around for a few years and then leave academia while others eventually find a permanent teaching oriented position. Very few end up in a tenure track position at research oriented schools. So be aware of the fact that you are taking a big step towards a teaching oriented career before you take a visiting position. 

It is also important to know that not all visiting positions are equal, and that factors like salary or location are not usually the most important things given the temporary nature of the job. What is far more important is how it will lead to a permanent position. There are two things you want to know about. First, find out if they tend to hire their own visitors to permanent positions. Sometimes schools will use visiting positions as auditions for more permanent (usually teaching oriented) positions, and this is a real feature. Second, and perhaps more importantly, find out how much support they will give you on the market. Some schools treat visitors as cheap labor while some treat them as apprentices to be mentored and helped. You want to make sure your school is in the second group. There are lots of things they can do for you.  Mentor your teaching and write teaching oriented reference letters. Host practice job talks for you. Promote you to their friends at other schools. Cover your courses if you have flyouts. If you take a visiting position, make sure you start thinking about the next step before you arrive, and make sure your department is thinking about that too.

Leaving academia. 
If you don't have options that appeal to you within academia, you may want to leave. Starting a career in the private or government sector usually involves more stability and a higher salary than the other three options. This can be especially appealing if you have a family. However, once you leave academia, it is very difficult to come back. If you want to fight and make some sacrifices to give academia your best shot now is the time. In general, the "best" non-academic jobs, the ones that involve doing serious PhD level research and analysis, hire on a schedule similar to academia. So if that is an option you think you might be interested in, you should apply to them during the regular cycle and try to get interviews at the AEA. However, it is worthwhile keeping in mind that a PhD in economics is a very marketable degree, so if you graduate and apply for jobs you are unlikely to be unemployed for long. If nothing else, this is a reassuring thought to keep in mind as things get stressful.

Comments

  1. This advice is largely obsolete in the post-Covid era. Interview schedules are a mess and departments are less disciplined in scheduling because they no longer have to squeeze interviews into a 3-4 day window.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'd not say it is "largely obsolete". Yes interview schedules have changed since the post was written. But the general advice on what to do when you do realize the market is not going well is very solid.

    ReplyDelete

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